Strategy to obtain US Amex

[pyusha]

So you have now done this twice using global transfer from Australia.

Yes. Hold 3 Amex US cards, 2 from AU GT and 1 from India GT.

 

[PointsLife1]

I’d probably like to give it a go, once I make up my mind on the best card for me, already holding the Aspire.

How are you finding the Aspire now it has been awhile? Covid making it hard obviously to use the benefits but long term do you think it is worth the annual fee? I am a huge Marriott fan so the Bonvoy Brilliant was my first choice and am very happy.

 

[DC3]

How are you finding the Aspire now it has been awhile? Covid making it hard obviously to use the benefits but long term do you think it is worth the annual fee? I am a huge Marriott fan so the Bonvoy Brilliant was my first choice and am very happy.

Well, I plan to keep the Aspire. I used the $250 Hilton resort benefit on the limited-time USA restaurants offer (Starbucks crediting was my only real option in Oz ), but it is what it is, as someone once said. The airline $250 benefit was used to purchase 8,500 AA miles on mileage multiplier bonus (cost $255, before the benefit, so $5 cost). I subsequently needed to cancel the AA award flight (for August 2020), with no penalty, and my award miles were re-credited, and the bonus miles remaining in my AA account.

Although these are rather poor value, they seemed to be the best that I could do under the circumstances. Hopefully, later in 2021 things may be better. Perhaps there may be other offers next year.

 

[PointsLife1]

Well, I plan to keep the Aspire. I used the $250 Hilton resort benefit on the limited-time USA restaurants offer (Starbucks crediting was my only real option in Oz ), but it is what it is, as someone once said. The airline $250 benefit was used to purchase 8,500 AA miles on mileage multiplier bonus (cost $255, before the benefit, so $5 cost). I subsequently needed to cancel the AA award flight (for August 2020), with no penalty, and my award miles were re-credited, and the bonus miles remaining in my AA account.

Although these are rather poor value, they seemed to be the best that I could do under the circumstances. Hopefully, later in 2021 things may be better. Perhaps there may be other offers next year.

Yes the resort credit and airline credit are my biggest concerns in getting the card, although I do like using AA miles for the zonal benefit in Australia, the only resort is Gold Coast if we are stuck for a little while and spoilt with JW Marriott Gold Coast (upgrading after refurbishment) and my favourite Sheraton Grand Mirage.

Maybe start slowly with the $95 version with Gold status.

 

[steveyyf]

Yes the resort credit and airline credit are my biggest concerns in getting the card, although I do like using AA miles for the zonal benefit in Australia, the only resort is Gold Coast if we are stuck for a little while and spoilt with JW Marriott Gold Coast (upgrading after refurbishment) and my favourite Sheraton Grand Mirage.

Maybe start slowly with the $95 version with Gold status.

Gold Coast Marriott will be a JW Marriott after current refurbishment?

 

[PointsLife1]

Gold Coast Marriott will be a JW Marriott after current refurbishment?

Yes received some material as organise corporate travel and will be JW Marriott. My concern is it will move to category 6.

 

[steveyyf]

If it is Cat 6 then it doesn't make sense to redeem with points. Even cat 5 i found it is hard to justify to use points.

 

[steveyyf]

An update on my Chase CSP application using ITIN.

I don't have much luck with SUB. Signed up for 60K SUB and a week later Chase started offering 80K. Thought about letting my app expire but decided to continue with it as I didn't want to waste one credit query. I was approved this morning.

After submitting an app,

- I got 30 days message. This is not bad as it's at least not an auto denial. It just means human has to look at my app.

- A few days later, it changed to 7-10 days messages which normally means either denial or needs verification.

According to this Chase flowchart from reddit,

I should have called them but I was waiting for the letter which never arrived. I decided to call them this week and was told I needed to mail or fax a copy of SSN/ITIN and proof of address which they accepted bank statement (was worried about this before as people reported they only accepted utility bills). I asked about secure upload which was reportedly available. I was told they didn't support it.

2 days after I faxed, I called them again and they still said my docs were not in the system and the agent said I would get a link to upload documents within 24 hours lol

- Before I got a link to upload, the message changed to 30 days again which normally means verification is done and now ready to be reviewed by lending department. Looks like they did get my fax. I was confident at this point as there weren't many cases that got rejected after being asked to submit documents.

I called this morning and was approved while on the phone with them.

If you are using Google Voice, text verification will not work. Each time I called, they tried to verify me by sending text but it failed. I was aware about this. It wasn't an issue as they could verify you with other questions. And 3 our of 4 times, I was asked what county I lived in (just google the city). Thankfully I was prepared as I heard about this before.

Anyway it wasn't as smooth as Amex and Citi but yes Chase still approves ITIN application. I'm now at 3/24 and will be 2/24 early next year. This is my 8th US active card. Will need to start cancelling some of these. In 4 years and a half, I applied for 9 cards and only cancelled one. Most of these are quite worth keeping.

May I ask after you get ITIN how did you update the new ITIN number with credit card issuer or credit bureau?

 

[Finale]

May I ask after you get ITIN how did you update the new ITIN number with credit card issuer or credit bureau?

I heard it was not possible with Amex to add ITIN to current accounts. I didn't bother with other banks and just applied for a new card with it.

 

[steveyyf]

I heard it was not possible with Amex to add ITIN to current accounts. I didn't bother with other banks and just applied for a new card with it.

apply new amex card with ITIN? have you applied any credit cards from other issuer with ITIN before your last application with chase?

 

[Finale]

apply new amex card with ITIN? have you applied any credit cards from other issuer with ITIN before your last application with chase?

Yes I did with Citi then Amex(business) then Chase.

 

[PointsLife1]

Was just charged 10USD when paying the balance using Revolut/TransferWise to Citi to Amex on amount 914.25USD. Last time I tried no fee on a small amount. Slightly annoying as now have to send another 10USD and surely they can’t charge 10USD if only sending 10USD.

Has anyone worked out the ideal amount yet? With the small fee to use Revolut to Citi and the extra time required XE doesn’t sound so bad now, well on this occasion anyway.

 

[pyusha]

Has anyone worked out the ideal amount yet? With the small fee to use Revolut to Citi and the extra time required XE doesn’t sound so bad now, well on this occasion anyway.

In all but one circumstances I have not been charged the $10/$15 fee for amounts less than $500.
There was this one payment which was charged $10 while the amount was less than 300.

 

[steveyyf]

Was just charged 10USD when paying the balance using Revolut/TransferWise to Citi to Amex on amount 914.25USD. Last time I tried no fee on a small amount. Slightly annoying as now have to send another 10USD and surely they can’t charge 10USD if only sending 10USD.

Has anyone worked out the ideal amount yet? With the small fee to use Revolut to Citi and the extra time required XE doesn’t sound so bad now, well on this occasion anyway.

Try to understand why cannot transfer from transferwise/revolute to US bank account directly?

 

[blacksultan]

Was just charged 10USD when paying the balance using Revolut/TransferWise to Citi to Amex on amount 914.25USD. Last time I tried no fee on a small amount. Slightly annoying as now have to send another 10USD and surely they can’t charge 10USD if only sending 10USD.

Has anyone worked out the ideal amount yet? With the small fee to use Revolut to Citi and the extra time required XE doesn’t sound so bad now, well on this occasion anyway.

Was this a $10 inward tt fee by Citi ? I was trying to figure out if this charged and made a $2 test payment which hasn’t arrived so maybe it was swallowed by the $10 fee !

Post automatically merged: Oct 20, 2020

Try to understand why cannot transfer from transferwise/revolute to US bank account directly?

I believe this method is used by those without a US bank account .

 

[PointsLife1]

Try to understand why cannot transfer from transferwise/revolute to US bank account directly?

TransferWise and Revolut do not allow “for further payment” not exactly sure why not but I did try when I first got my card and the payment was declined and a black mark against my Amex profile.

 

[blacksultan]

In all but one circumstances I have not been charged the $10/$15 fee for amounts less than $500.
There was this one payment which was charged $10 while the amount was less than 300.

I thought Citi claimed they didn’t charge any fees .

 

[pyusha]

I thought Citi claimed they didn’t charge any fees .

They still claim. They asked me to check with receiver (Chase in our case). I left it there and have transferred amounts less or equal to 500 and have not been charged thereafter.

 

[blacksultan]

They still claim. They asked me to check with receiver (Chase in our case). I left it there and have transferred amounts less or equal to 500 and have not been charged thereafter.

They can claim it was charged by an intermediary over which they have no control and can’t be traced .
Actually I was referring to a charge by Citi for an inward tt into your Citi account from revolut . Is anyone aware if there are any charges for same ? Anz charged me $15 for a transfer from revolut .

 

[pyusha]

They can claim it was charged by an intermediary over which they have no control and can’t be traced .
Actually I was referring to a charge by Citi for an inward tt into your Citi account from revolut . Is anyone aware if there are any charges for same ? Anz charged me $15 for a transfer from revolut .

Citi hasn't charged anything for incoming.
The only cost involved for me was roughly $4 that Revolut charges